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September 02, 2006
Why not just call it "Web 2.0!" ?
'Cause Yahoo! is the only major player who 'gets it.' They're working very hard to interface with developers, keeping the companies that they buy semi-autonomous (at least that's how it looks from outside), and offering mad mash-up and reuse opportunities. So far they've declined to lock-out competitors, or maybe they're declining to lock-in customers. Depends upon your view I suppose.
So where's the proof you say? How about over at Upcoming.org where you can add events to your Yahoo calendar, your Mac iCal, your Microsoft Outlook calendar, your Google calendar, or your 30 boxes calendar? Only two of those represent direct competitors, but the important thing here is that the site allows you to export the data to a myriad of services. And it's a full implementation of the export too, not some half-assed XML format that you have to edit by hand to actually use.
The outcome of such policies is an increase in the usefulness of the services that Yahoo! owns, even if a customer prefers to get some of their services from Yahoo's competitors. That's a competitive advantage, and one that will be sustainable so long as everyone else is busy trying to lock customers into a single, proprietary, group of services (ala Google with their Gmail, Calendar, IM client, news service, custom start page, etc.).
But enough fan-boyish praise, eh? Getting back to the post's title, Yahoo! seems to understand the principles that will underly the continued evolution of the 'net, and they're in a position to acquire any hot little start-ups that come along. And, this part's important, they're in a position to know about those start-ups sooner than their competitors, due to their ongoing outreach to Valley based developers. Though I suppose Google could be using some of their spare CPU cycles to parse packets from the WiFi they're offering for 'free' in Mountain View, looking for hot new ideas to 'borrow' ;-)
Posted by ashusta at September 2, 2006 08:52 PM